


Withered Vines

by Shadowblayze



Series: Whimsy 'Verse [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 03:58:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6454771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowblayze/pseuds/Shadowblayze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petunia Dursley is a ball of contradictions.  Her history is shared with her nephew in fits and starts over the ten years Harry spent at the Dursley home before Hogwarts and this culminates in a very different boy being ushered into a new, exciting world of magic.</p>
<p>(And yet, there is so much that is the same, despite the sparkles and lights and majesty.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Withered Vines

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this is going.......

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Harry Potter had been taught the value of secrets at a young age.

Of all the residents of Privet Drive Harry supposed he was the closest to having the full story, or as much of the story as possible given the circumstances.  Told to him by his aunt over the course of mornings spent folding laundry together while Dudley watched the telly or in bits and pieces over long afternoons spent tending the yard, Harry had learned that there were three sides to every story- the right, the wrong, and the truth.

Harry knew that Petunia Dursley _hated_ being Petunia Dursley.  That she had sought out a husband only because her younger sister- Harry’s mother- had announced her decision to marry his father, James Potter.  That Vernon Dursley had been the best she could find on such short notice and how she honestly loathed the man, despite perfectly playing the part of a simpering, dutiful wife.  Harry knew that Petunia had loved Dudley, but as years passed and he became more and more like his father, Petunia’s affection for the boy curdled, fading into indolent indifference.

Petunia had always been the odd one out, but she loved her parents and baby sister more than anything.  However, for as progressive as her parents were- having a young magical in the household and everything- there were some lines that her parents would never cross.  Petunia, already resigned to her fate as the unattractive, boring, unremarkable elder sister had still loved her family even as she resented them.   Books of fantasy were her secret escape from the shackles of normality.  Petunia had been so young and yet so incredibly bitter at the lot lay out before her, pressing desperately against the glass ceiling that held her back from living instead of simply existing.

Then, while studying at University, she had met someone who had filled her world with color, adventure, and ignited within her a true passion for life and all of its mysteries.

Anna Harding.

Anna was everything Petunia had ever wanted in a friend, a partner, a _soulmate_.

Anna had been dark haired, dark eyed, a regular sun-kissed princess whose heritage hinted at exciting adventures and lovers with the whole world against them.  She was kind, yet held a fierce temper when crossed.  Anna was _everything_ to Petunia, and due to Lily’s gifts- Petunia had only uttered the word ‘magic’ once and it was spat with so very much vitriol Harry had nearly _cried_ \- Lily had discovered the true nature of the twos’ relationship.

Petunia had told Harry, when he had still been too young to truly understand yet old enough to empathize, that Petunia had never, ever forgiven Lily for ruining her relationship with Anna.  Lily had _known_ that to marry before her elder sister would cast inquiry onto Petunia and her life, and yet _Lily had done so anyways._   Petunia, with bitter tears in her tired eyes, had whispered of how Lily had ignored Petunia’s pleas to wait just another year or two so that Petunia could finish her degree and be able to support herself.

Petunia had been so furious she had not been able to attend the wedding.  Not without fearing that she would cause a scene and end up turned into a rat or a slug or something equally disgusting for daring to upset the bride.

Petunia had married Vernon Dursley for spite, stability, and propriety.  Vernon, Petunia explained to her nephew in whispered wisps of one-sided conversations over dinner preparations, loved himself and his own voice far too much to love anyone else.  Petunia confessed to her nephew that while she carried Dudley and loved the _thought_ of him she felt positively wretched for being unable to truly love him as a mother _should_.

Perhaps it was Vernon’s refusal to hear of disciplining the child or in the way the boy soaked up the cruelty of his father and aunt greedily that caused Petunia to merely go along with his whims.  Harry listened and observed, knowing the apathy Petunia felt was inherently wrong and yet Harry understood her secret fears.

Petunia had told her nephew what she knew of Hogwarts, had secretly gifted him the books of her happiest years.  With a smile full of jagged edges she had told him of how ‘they’ used ‘wands’ and had given the supernatural ‘rules’ and how Petunia expected better from her nephew, because he was an _Evans_.  Petunia’s eyes had burned with a strange emotion as she discussed Tolkien’s elves or Narnia’s Aslan, as if she was triumphing somehow by teaching Harry to _dream_. 

The bookmark- a colorful photograph, dog-eared from time and loss- showed a smiling, content Petunia laughing, her arms wrapped around a shorter women with a bright smile and soft eyes.

Harry had wept, more than once, as he considered the women in the pictures- so happy and alive and jubilant- and the older, worn version of his aunt that he saw every day.

Harry understood his role as the proverbial Dursley family whipping boy.  Petunia had quietly explained- with regret in her eyes, yet far too much apathy to challenge the status quo- how his treatment was tailored to make Vernon and Dudley feel superior, how keeping Harry ‘down’ and forcing him to do ‘women’s work’ was Vernon’s way of keeping ‘the freak in his place’.  Petunia explained how, to Vernon, sewing, laundry, cooking, and cleaning were demeaning tasks for a ‘man’.  Petunia had snorted in a rather unladylike manner and crisply informed Harry that any man who thought such things were below him was no man at all, but a pig in a man’s skin.

_“You’ll be going to that school when you turn eleven, Harry.”  Petunia told her nephew listlessly as they weeded the garden.  “But I have to wait at least another decade before I can fashionably divorce that bastard and still be considered a respectable women.”  Petunia’s lips curved upwards in a humorless smirk.  “I’m a walking contradiction, hopefully your life is much better, having had my life to serve as an example of what not to do.”_

Harry, himself, was far from normal- quiet, introspective, and nearly unnaturally careful with his words.  Tempered by the stories of a woman who had been bleached an unnatural shade of _normal_ by the expectations around her.  By her own fears of being different or strange and how it would affect her family, her parents and her sister.  Petunia was bitter and angry and loveless, and yet there was something beautiful in her story that Harry could not entirely understand, not yet at least.  Harry was quiet, observant, strangely empathetic and yet uniquely aware of how unspoken values of normalcy dictated the actions and opinions of the community at large.

Harry, intellectually, understood that the reason everyone was hyper-focused on Mrs Number Seven’s pregnant teenage daughter was less about her daughter and her situation and more out of the desire to vilify and tear down someone else in order to make themselves feel superior.  Over and over again throughout the years, Harry observed how people who normally gossiped about each other would band together to tear down someone else.  It baffled him even as he understood what was happening.

But those years of living in suburbia and seeing the infection that festered underneath the pretty words, manicured lawns, and picture-perfect families gave Harry a unique viewpoint on life, love, and the universe at large.

Thus, a very different Harry was ‘rescued’ from the Hut on the Rock by the kind, though rather simple, Hagrid.

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End file.
